Alone,

Human societies, at all times and places, have organised
themselves around the will to live with others, not alone. But not
any more. During the past half-century, our species has
embarked on a remarkable social experiment. For the first time in
human history, great numbers of people – at all ages, in all places,
of every political persuasion – have begun settling down as
singletons. Until the second half of the last century, most of us
married young and parted only at death. If death came early, we
remarried quickly; if late, we moved in with family, or they with
us. Now we marry later. We divorce, and stay single for years or
decades. We survive our spouses, and do everything we can to
avoid moving in with others – including our children. We cycle in
and out of different living arrangements: alone, together, together,
alone.
Numbers never tell the whole story, but in this case the statistics
are startling. According to the market research firm Euromonitor
International, the number of people living alone globally is
skyrocketing, rising from about 153 million in 1996 to 277 million
in 2011 – an increase of around 80% in 15 years. In the UK, 34% of
households have one person living in them and in the US it's 27%.
Contemporary solo dwellers in the US are primarily women:
about 18 million, compared with 14 million men. The majority,
more than 16 million, are middle-aged adults between the ages of
35 and 64. The elderly account for about 11 million of the total.
Young adults between 18 and 34 number more than 5 million,
compared with 500,000 in 1950, making them the fastest-
growing segment of the solo-dwelling population. Unlike their
predecessors, people who live alone today cluster together in
metropolitan areas.
Sweden has more solo dwellers than anywhere else in the world,
with 47% of households having one resident; followed by Norway
at 40%. In Scandinavian countries their welfare states protect
most citizens from the more difficult aspects of living alone. In
Japan, where social life has historically been organised around the
family, about 30% of all households have a single dweller, and the
rate is far higher in urban areas. The Netherlands and Germany
share a greater proportion of one-person households than the UK.
And the nations with the fastest growth in one-person
households? China, India and Brazil.
But despite the worldwide prevalence, living alone isn't really
discussed, or understood. We aspire to get our own places as
young adults, but fret about whether it's all right to stay that way,
even if we enjoy it. We worry about friends and family members
who haven't found the right match, even if they insist that they're
OK on their own. We struggle to support elderly parents and
grandparents who find themselves living alone after losing a
spouse, but we are puzzled if they tell us they prefer to remain
alone.
In all of these situations, living alone is something that each
person, or family, experiences as the most private of matters,
when in fact it is an increasingly common condition.
When there is a public debate about the rise of living alone,
commentators present it as a sign of fragmentation. In fact, the
reality of this great social experiment is far more interesting – and
far less isolating – than these conversations would have us
believe. The rise of living alone has been a transformative social
experience. It changes the way we understand ourselves and our
most intimate relationships. It shapes the way we build our cities
and develop our economies.
So what is driving it? The wealth generated by economic
development and the social security provided by modern welfare
states have enabled the spike. One reason that more people live
alone than ever before is that they can afford to. Yet there are a
great many things that we can afford to do but choose not to,
which means the economic explanation is just one piece of the
puzzle.
In addition to economic prosperity, the rise stems from the
cultural change that Émile Durkheim, a founding figure in
sociology in the late 19th century, called the cult of the individual.
According to Durkheim, this cult grew out of the transition from
traditional rural communities to modern industrial cities. Now the
cult of the individual has intensified far beyond what Durkheim
envisioned. Not long ago, someone who was dissatisfied with
their spouse and wanted a divorce had to justify that decision.
Today if someone is not fulfilled by their marriage, they have to
justify staying in it, because there is cultural pressure to be good
to one's self.
Another driving force is the communications revolution, which
has allowed people to experience the pleasures of social life even
when they're living alone. And people are living longer than ever
before – or, more specifically, because women often outlive their
spouses by decades, rather than years – and so ageing alone has
become an increasingly common experience.
Although each person who develops the capacity to live alone
finds it an intensely personal experience, my research suggests
that some elements are widely shared. Today, young solitaires
actively reframe living alone as a mark of distinction and success.
They use it as a way to invest time in their personal and
professional growth. Such investments in the self are necessary,
they say, because contemporary families are fragile, as are most
jobs, and in the end each of us must be able to depend on
ourselves. On the one hand, strengthening the self means
undertaking solitary projects and learning to enjoy one's own
company. But on the other it means making great efforts to be
social: building up a strong network of friends and work contacts.
Living alone and being alone are hardly the same, yet the two are
routinely conflated. In fact, there's little evidence that the rise of
living alone is responsible for making us lonely. Research shows
that it's the quality, not the quantity of social interactions that best
predicts loneliness. What matters is not whether we live alone, but
whether we feel alone. There's ample support for this conclusion
outside the laboratory. As divorced or separated people often say,
there's nothing lonelier than living with the wrong person.
There is also good evidence that people who never marry are no
less content than those who do. According to research, they are
significantly happier and less lonely than people who are widowed
or divorced.
In theory, the rise of living alone could lead to any number of
outcomes, from the decline of community to a more socially
active citizenry, from rampant isolation to a more robust public
life. I began my exploration of singleton societies with an eye for
their most dangerous and disturbing features, including
selfishness, loneliness and the horrors of getting sick or dying
alone. I found some measure of all of these things. On balance,
however, I came away convinced that the problems related to
living alone should not define the condition, because the great
majority of those who go solo have a more rich and varied
experience.
Sometimes they feel lonely, anxious and uncertain about whether
they would be happier in another arrangement. But so do those
who are married or live with others. The rise of living alone has
produced significant social benefits, too. Young and middle-aged
solos have helped to revitalise cities, because they are more
likely to spend money, socialise and participate in public life.
Despite fears that living alone may be environmentally
unsustainable, solos tend to live in apartments rather than in big
houses, and in relatively green cities rather than in car-dependent
suburbs. There's good reason to believe that people who live
alone in cities consume less energy than if they coupled up and
decamped to pursue a single-family home.
Ultimately, it's too early to say how any particular society will
respond to either the problems or the opportunities generated by
this extraordinary social transformation. After all, our experiment
with living alone is still in its earliest stages, and we are just
beginning to understand how it affects our own lives, as well as
those of our families, communities and cities.
• Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise And Surprising Appeal Of
Living Alone, by Eric Kinenberg, is published by Penguin Press at
£21.
Colm Toibin, 56